November 11, 2010

GOD KNOWS...

I can remember being about 8 years-old and carefully coloring in between the lines on a plastic sheet... minutes later I would place this delicately crafted piece of plastic on a baking sheet, shove it in the oven and wonder: How, oh, how will this plastic Barbie shrink to the size of Tom Thumb???

SHRINKY DINKS.

Do you remember them?

They were incredible. Magical. And frighteningly unsafe and probably, TOXIC.

They HAD to be toxic.

Right???

With a 3 year old, I definitely try to do my best to provide foods (minus the occasional "Old" McDonald meal we indulge on every blue moon) that aren't blatantly out to destroy organs. But to be honest, I can't say I'm as strict with toys. In fact, just this weekend, we were playing with a toy (that Jonah got to pick out after sleeping in his big boy bed for the first night) that reminded me of the (WTF-god-only-knows-what-goes-into-this-toy-to-make-it-do-this) wonderment I remember as an 8 year old playing with shrinky dinks.

Basically, he would take this yellow car, squeeze it with COLD water (has to be COLD water!) and then send it through the car wash....

The car goes down the slide, as most cars do at fancy car washes (right?), and voila, The car is now (in HOT water) and RED.

Magic and not a drop of ink or paint or lead visible on my son's chubby little fingers.

Sid the Science Kid would have a friggin' field day trying to figure this sucker out.

3 comments:

Oh my gosh! I was just thinking about this the other day. My daughter is 8 months old and now that she is starting to really play with toys I've really been pondering what's in that stuff!?! Great post!

honestly, I can't say that other than checking that nothing is tiny enough to choke on or likely to ruin my furniture I don't give a second thought to my kids toys. Probably why I didn't get my nomination for mother of the year this year.